


Little alone

by Artemis_Crimson



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Also! I ain't transmasc so on one hand if this is offensive and I fucked up do say, Character Study, Gen, I've assinged him trans and second gen mixed immigrant, Pre Golden Age, Pre Rez Drifter, and a loving call out for all of us who can't settle on a name, but on the other this is a mug of personal experience dumped over a pile of pronouns, one very specific headcanon only I subscribe to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:06:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24638038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis_Crimson/pseuds/Artemis_Crimson
Summary: In which the man who will become the Drifter has the first fistful of glimmer
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	Little alone

The century right after the Traveler arrived is not regarded by contemporary historians as a true part of the golden age, something fortunate as this particular scientist wouldn’t have fit in with that brand of shimmering optimism very well.  
He’s had many names, the few friends who’s he’s stuck with long enough to known them all are quick on the uptake.  
If they’re not he leaves them, simple as that.  
He’s clever enough that people will edit his papers with the new information, and again when he needs to change it in a year or two, eager for a slice of his reputation. He’s notorious enough that they reprint his doctorate again and again to pin on the wall, call his name and say ‘yes sir’ when he makes demands.

He knows it’s not like this for everyone, but he fought tooth and nail for it. He can't explain why he keeps changing, it's not like it's just on a whim either, they’re all him, all except that very first name. He just, drifts.

Place to place, persona to persona.  
The trappings he can’t help but cling to, the decorations remains consistent. Same five layers, same spiteful love of jewellery, same bulky jackets because he’s still always just a bit too chilly. Same chipped plates in his cupboards and moving boxes wherever he goes, chipped mugs and hand-me-down pottery stained timeworn yellow. Same old scarf, moth-eaten but warm with the memory of a kiss on his cheek every morning before heading off to school to clubs to school to work and school and school again and again for years.  
Cold with a funeral so he tucks it beneath that same jacket collar and marches onward trying to be something better.

The world is supposed to be better. A brilliant new era of enlightenment. All thanks to that fancy orb in the sky. He’d seen it arrive as a kid, he’s studied it, knows it’s as real as the rock in his shoe but well.  
He doesn’t trust the Traveler, or any of the starry eyed idealism. It won’t come easy if it happens at all, and he certainly doesn’t believe it’ll be for everyone.

Today he's presenting his bribe, his price, the cost that he pays to himself to and price to that mirage ideal of improvement around him, a shiny new piece aiming to change the world.  
He didn’t take a grant to make this and like usually he hasn't asked permission, all off books on his own time and dwindling funds. It’s a wager staking his reputation among other, less important things.  
Bray is holding a symposium and he’s the guest of honour even if the old women doesn’t know it yet, he owes her son one since he had slipped him in the schedule. He’s well liked in their circle of souped up pseudoscience- if shifty if eccentric if strange. Nothing to worry about, just his his lifetime achievement held up for judgment.  
Up the steps to the hall, flashing a speaker badge to a guard, telling himself there's no better trial then that by fire.  
Hands in his pockets just to check everything is there by touch alone at first. Nodules, battery packet, computer to program it, the final product, and then to be sure, just to see it again he’s pulling a chunk off the lode. Glimmers like a dream in his sweaty palm. Brilliant blue potential in his fist. He’s better than anyone else in this miserable rock at change, the future isn't going to happen without him. Backstage now, he's half an hour out from proving that.


End file.
